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O'Neill, P. & McGuirk, P. (2003). Regional development politics along Australia's eastern seaboard. In E. Carlson (Eds.), The Full Employment Imperative: 5th Path to Full Employment Conference and 10th National Conference on Unemployment (pp. 197-208). Newcastle, Australia: Centre of Full Employment and Equity.

Abstract

Despite its enduring nature, there is remarkably little published analysis about Australia's period of contemporary prosperity. It is clear that the post -war Keynesian-Fordist foundations for accumulation in Australia have been displaced. Prima facie evidence suggests that this displacement centres on econormc advantage within the nation's finance, property and business services sectors. Evidence also suggests that a new territorial configurations of Australia's urban and regional economies has accompanied this sectoral shift and, in turn, new spatial distributional flows have been generated. The paper examines whether a new urban-centric economic configuration has emerged. Economic reterritorialisations in Australia have necessarily produced new stabilising institutional configurations. For Sydney, this has involved complex, multi-scaled, private-public arrangements. For non-metropolitan regions, the reterritorialisation of institutions has not been as concerted or complex. Rather, drawing on simplistic ideas about new regionaJism, non-metropolitan regions have been encouraged to develop disconnected, local scale accumulation projects, with varying degrees of success. The paper argues that these institutional responses have been inadequate in producing equitable, enduring economic growth outcomes.